U's Nick Tow-Arnett: Grunt work, great results

Twice a week last summer, Nick Tow-Arnett, his brothers Nate and Jeff and a few of their teammates on the Gophers football team would get prehistoric. On purpose.

They'd go over to Athletic Performance Inc. in Brooklyn Center and work with Scott Ramsdell. They would flip big tires, toss sledgehammers, pick up sandbags and throw them around. It's called Caveman Training, something Ramsdell trademarked and has made popular through his work with guys such as Brock Lesnar and other UFC fighters.

"It's grunt work,'' said Nick Tow-Arnett, the Gophers starting tight end. "Tires, sledgehammers, a bunch of rope work. It's like if you did manual work for a living, getting strong like that."

Tow-Arnett smiled at the memory. Not surprising. Tow-Arnett never met a workout he didn't like. Weights? Ask Gophers strength and conditioning coach Mark Hill, he'll tell you Tow-Arnett is a guy who has to be run out of the weight room. "You have to tell him to take a day off for his own benefit," Hill said.

Tow-Arnett is a blue-collar story of success, one who hopes to add another chapter on Saturday against Wisconsin. The Badgers feature much-heralded tight end Garrett Graham. He deserves the acclaim, entering the game with 16 catches for 200 yards and four touchdowns.

But he won't be the only quality tight end on the field. Tow-Arnett, who dealt with injury problems in high school, walked on at Minnesota two years after high school graduation. That was in 2005. Now, as a senior, he is an emerging threat in the Gophers offense, a true dual-purpose tight end who can block on the run or along the line of scrimmage. As a receiver Tow-Arnett has dropped only one pass he has gotten his hands on in his entire college career.

"A lot of tight ends are either finesse, pass-receiver types of tight ends or they're blockers," said Gophers coach Tim Brewster, who knows a bit about the position. He played it in college at Illinois and coached the position in the NFL. "Nick, he does both pretty well."

Said quarterback Adam Weber: "He's got some of the surest hands on the team. He's truly one of those guys with Stickum on his hands."

And a lot of motivation in his gut. As one of the hardest-working guys on the team, Tow-Arnett works out like a fanatic and watches his diet the same way. All this because his goals are growing.

Last summer -- after finishing his junior season as the backup to Jack Simmons -- Tow-Arnett was one of a handful of Gophers players who did some summer workouts at TCF Bank Stadium with a bunch of pro players assembled by Larry Fitzgerald Jr. The first day he was in awe. Soon he felt he fit in. One day, Tow-Arnett made a nice one-handed catch that drew raves from Jerry Rice.

That's when he felt, maybe there is another step. But first, the rest of his senior year. In the season opener at Syracuse, his one catch was a key 12-yarder on a tying drive. A week later he made up for his only drop with a 25-yard catch on third-and-25 during a scoring drive against Air Force. Tow-Arnett had a career-high five catches last week at Northwestern. For the season, he has 10 catches for 128 yards.

"He's done a great job for us, doing everything we've asked him to do," offensive coordinator Jedd Fisch said. "Early on, that was a lot of run blocking. We will continue to use Nick. He is an impact player for us."

The more catches he makes, the more impact he has, the better the chance he'll get an opportunity at the next level. Those workouts last summer with the pros proved to him he wasn't out of place in that company. Those workouts in the weight room -- and throwing anvils around -- show that he's willing to do anything to get to that level.

Already he's working to add his name to the rather long list of quality Gophers tight ends.

There are pictures in the tight ends' meeting room of guys such as Charlie Sanders, Ben Utecht and Matt Spaeth with a sign that reads: "Who's going to be next?"

Why not him?